A unique and distinctive culture emerges from the Burning Man experience. Rooted in the values expressed by the Ten Principles, this culture is manifested around the globe through art, communal effort, and innumerable individual acts of self-expression. To many, it is a way of life.

···A path or route the complete traversal of which without local change of direction requires returning to the starting point.
···The act of following such a path or route.
···A journey made on such a path or route.

waking the general public involves:
putting something unexpected in front of them

"The circus of Rome is thought to have been influenced by the Egyptians and Greeks where chariot racing and the exhibition of exotic animals were popular events. The Roman circus consisted of tiers of seats running parallel with the sides of the course, and forming a crescent round one of the ends. The lower seats were reserved for persons of rank; there were also various state boxes, eg. for the giver of the games and his friends. In Ancient Rome the circus was the only public spectacle at which men and women were not separated."

sounds like it may have contributed to the downfall of rome, or is it just me?

But this leads to a group performance piece that would wander around BRD

of which (without local change of direction) requires returning to the starting point.

in my example of a circuit:
1) the only location identified is the starting point
2) with local changes of direction:
there is no required returning to the starting point
3)where such a venture would lead is quite mysterious

If we can lay aside the wisdomisms for a minute or two and talk turkey...

I'm in the initial stages of getting together a circus act. There's a groundswell of participation in equestrian theatre that pairs up a dressage horse-and-rider pair and a dancer on the ground. Not as suicidal as one would think: Dressage Today ran an article on it this past summer. My horse's sire's trainer/rider, Sabine Schut-Kery, does this with her Andalusian and Lipizzaner stallions and a flamenco dancer; the dancer's name escapes me at the moment and I don't have the article to hand...

Anyway, when I started reading about this new equestrian-art discipline, I got interested and I'm looking into doing it in the next couple years. I'm currently looking around for dancers of any type — eurhythmic, belly dancers, flamenco, heck, even pole dancers and I'll learn to ride garrocha, with a pole. The plan is to find someone either local (within a hundred miles radius) or willing to relocate to the Willamette Valley, commit to at least once-weekly practice session, work up an act and take it initially around to horse shows, expos, festivals, with a view towards eventually joining a circus.

Are we talking practicality here or are we just...opening another sounding board for zen poetry and offbeat philosophizing?

Diane - your idea sounds wonderful. I did competitive equine vaulting for years and was always pissed off at how artistically limiting the "accepted" movements are, even in the freestyle events. Rode dressage for many, many years too and the combination that you are considering is facinating.

I am aware of some shows that have had "horse dancing" competitions but what I would really like to see would be a combination of all the above in a "Circue de Soleil" format.

I wish I wasn't so far away - would love to participate. Good luck!!!!

I'm intrigued by the possibilities implied by the juxtaposition of "circus" and "circuit"....And while on the subject, anyone familiar with Calder's circus? I've considered making a playa version. Already made a few of its denizens, and I recently picked up a flame-bordered napkin that'll make dandy scaled-down Lamplighter robes...

robotland wrote:I'm intrigued by the possibilities implied by the juxtaposition of "circus" and "circuit"...

"Having decided to become an artist, Calder moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students' League. Whilst a student, Calder became fascinated with the circus, sketching a number of studies on circus themes and sculpting a number of wire frame circus animals and carnival performers. Upon graduating, Calder moved to Paris to continue his studies in art. He took his wire model circus with him, and gave elaborately improvised shows recreating the performance of a real circus. Soon, his Cirque Calder became popular with the Parisian avant-garde, and Calder was charging an entrance fee to see his two hour show of a circus that he could pack into a suitcase."

Arguably the standard form of reverse Turing test is one in which the subjects attempt to appear to be a computer rather than a human.

The humans that perform best (some would say worst) in the reverse Turing test are those that know computers best, and so know the types of errors that computers can be expected to make in conversation.

There are also cases of accidental reverse Turing tests, occurring when a programmer is in a sufficiently non-human mood that his conversation unintentionally resembles that of a computer.